Es Apmaldijos
by Angelic Fluffle
Summary: "I want to go home. I want to be back with my friends and family. I don't want to be stuck in some immortal teenager's body!" A realistic look at an OC dropped into Hetalia. Because it isn't wonderful. It isn't all fun and games. It's suspicion and black magic. It's abuse and homesickness. Because you cannot forget. You can never forget. They are not human. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**Story Title:**Es Apmaldijos

**Date Posted: **3.14.14

**Date Edited: **3.28.14 (Removed the censors)

**Word Count: **2,371

**Disclaimer: **If it was mine, do you really think I'd be posting on FanFictiondotnet? (Okay… I admit it. If I was an author, I'd totally post fanfiction for my own story.)

**Warning: **Filthy language. Rude OC. Failed magic.

**Pre-Chapter Summary: **N/A

**[…]**

_**Viens: Iebraukšana**_

**One: Entry**

"…Hetalia?" I raised my head from my desk as my best friend's words finally registered. "What's that?"

She looked miffed. "Haven't you listened to a word I said in the last ten minutes?!"

"No," I replied honestly. "You know I'm not into anemone and mango like you are."

"_Anime_ and _manga_," she corrected. "Not anemone and mango. They're Japanese comics."

I tuned her out as she started another of her lectures on the awesomeness of anime and why I should watch it with her. She could go on for hours, eventually turning to her current favorites, like Axis Powers Hetalia, as the spines of the stack of books in front of me read. The topmost one showed the drawing of an excited looking boy in a blue military uniform with a long curl sticking out of his hair. I turned to look at my friend, or more specifically, the clip-on curl sticking haphazardly out of her bangs.

Obsession, thy name is Hetalia.

"…oh, and call me Italy-chan now," she finished, snapping me out of my daze.

I frowned. "I already call you Carrie-chan. I'm not calling you Italy-chan."

Carrie scowled. "Come _on_! And I'll call you Roma-chan!"

"Why on earth would I want to be called _Roma-chan_?" I snorted.

"'Cuz! He's awesome!"

"I don't even know who _he_ is."

"He's South Italy! Romano acts really rude, but he's actually really sweet!"

"Carrie-chan, I love you, you're my best friend, _but if you call me Roma-chan, I will punch your lights out._"

"That's the Roma-chan I know!" she laughed as I swung a fist at her, jumping out of the way of the slow punch.

"I just finished watching FullPetal Narcissist—"

"FullMetal Alchemist!"

"—FullMental Masochist, and now you want me to watch something else? Are you mad?"

"The episodes are only five minutes long!" she informed me cheerfully.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to go pick up my computer from the tech squad," I said, referring to the laptop that had crashed when Carrie had tried to watch FullNettle Pharmacist or whatever it was called on my laptop.

She brightened. "Can I come with you?"

"You have a makeup test with Mrs. Jashin because you were watching FullKettle Catalyst instead of studying, remember?"

Carrie pouted. "Sometimes I think you do that on purpose."

"Nah, FullDevil Botanist is just too hard to remember."

"There! You did it again!" We shared a laugh before going our separate ways, she to our algebra teacher and I to the tech lab.

The tech lab was situated in a newer part of the school, crammed between the gym and the office. It was rather bare, with a line of computers along the wall and a table covered in broken laptops in the center of the room. Generally, you could find a teacher or two in there to help you out, but it was empty today. I shrugged and made a beeline for the shelf of recently repaired computers, skimming my fingers along the nametags to look for mine.

"Ow!" one of them shocked me, causing me to yank back my arm and suck on the offending finger. The tag that had zapped me flipped, dancing on its cord as if caught in a bubbly breeze. As it turned, I caught a glimpse of a circle drawn on the back – a circle that appeared to be glowing. Neon highlighter? It didn't look like that, but whatever. It was freaky.

"Oh, shit!" A masculine voice yelped, and I turned to face a boy whose expression mirrored what he had just said. His green eyes were wide with fear under caterpillar-like eyebrows. "That-that-that shouldn't have worked!"

I frowned blearily at him, wondering why he was starting to look blurry. "Who are… what?"

"That shouldn't have worked! I designed it to be a dud!"

I scowled at the boy. "What the Hell are you talking about?"

"Do you feel dizzy? Blurry or dark vision, nausea, confusion, unexplained emotions, sleepiness…" he rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders and squinting into my eyes.

I pushed him away. "Who the fuck are you?!"

"Arthur Kirkland, tenth grade! Now, er, counter-curse, er, _nolite maledictionem, finem cantus, animi dolor, nihil_! Not working… er… _odoo kharaal duusgakh,__termina acest blestem acum, stavi kraJ na ovaa prokletstvo sega, diwedd felltith hwn yn awr, __télos se af̱tí̱n ti̱n katára tó̱ra_!"

My vision blackened as he continued to chant nonsense at me, getting progressively more hysterical as I began to sway.

"…hætta, 停止, להפסיק, ਨੂੰ ਰੋਕ, توقف…"

I dropped to my knees, the boy dropping with me as he began to trace frantic patterns on my hand.

"…रोक, aturar, nres, kwụsị, thamba, lõpetama…"

My vision darkened to nothing, but I could still hear him chant.

"…stoppa, megáll, បញ្ឈប់, остановить, sustabdyti, apstaties…" My hearing faded, and the last thing I felt was the panicky movement of fingers over the palm of my hand.

_(maiņa)_

"…uuuuggghhh… dammit." I opened my eyes, expecting to see the nurse's ceiling, or perhaps the worried green eyes of Arthur Kinkyland or Quirkland or whatever his name was. Instead, I was met with empty blackness.

"_S-sveika_?" A shaking voice inquired, and I turned my head to look at a small boy sitting about two meters away in the blackness.

"What? Where am I?" I pushed myself up, kneeling in what Carrie called _seiza_ position for a moment before crossing my legs.

"I-I don't kn-know…" he muttered, in English this time, and I noticed that he was shaking like a leaf. Was he cold? I realized he was still speaking. "I-I went t-to sleep, and th-then I woke up h-here… s-so, a dream?"

"Not unless you entered my dream, too."

"I-It's not that uncommon f-for nations t-to enter the dr-dreams of their citizens… b-but you have an A-American accent. And y-you're speaking English."

"Wait, what's this about nations? And I'm _Canadian_, thank you very much." I was proud of my nationality – half French Canadian, a quarter European French, and a quarter English, born and raised in London, Ontario, and currently living in Toronto. I spoke Quebecois French and English fluently. Those who dared to call me American would feel the burn.

"S-sorry! But you sound American," he blurted.

"CANADIAN. GET IT RIGHT."

"Y-yes! I'm s-sorry, I-I didn't m-mean it!" His stutter intensified. "Wh-what's your n-name?"

I glowered at him slightly, but the poor boy looked so frightened that I dropped it. "Natalie."

If possible, he looked even more terrified. I growled, "Is something wrong with my name?"

"N-no! I j-just known someone w-with a similar n-name…" apparently, the mere thought of this person terrified him, because he whimpered and said "C-can I c-call you something else?"

"You can call me Caron," I said grudgingly. "It's my last name."

He looked relieved. "I c-can do that."

"And?"

"A-and?!"

"_Your name_."

"O-oh! Raivis G-Galante!"

"Raivis…?" I repeated. "What a weird name."

"I-it's Latvian…"

"Latin?"

"N-no, L-Latvian…"

"What the Hell is a Latvian?"

"L-Latvia is a c-country," he muttered unhappily.

"Oh. Never heard of it." I think I might have been offending him, but his timid expression covered up any annoyance.

"M-most people ha-haven't…"

"Meh. Whatever," I said, cutting him off. My mother would have scolded me for being rude and insensitive, but I honestly didn't give a shit. Besides, his stutter was bothering me. Couldn't the kid learn to talk properly?

As we had been talking, the world around us faded to gray, then a warm reddish-orange. At the same time, Raivis and I had been vanishing. Since we both had determined that this was a dream and the other was a figment of our imagination, we paid it no mind.

_(pamosties)_

My eyes snapped open, and I was met with a blank, white ceiling. I frowned. The school ceilings were all gray (except for the gym, but this was far too low, and besides, why would I be in the _gym_?) and my bedroom had a sloped, wooden ceiling since I had the attic. Where was I?

_'Wah! I can't move!'_ A voice cried, and I shot up and spun to see who had shouted. I ended up falling on my butt, since my center of balance had apparently shifted in my sleep and was now a lot lower than I was used too. _'How come you're still here?!'_

I blinked. _Still here…?_ I looked down at my hands. They were tiny, pale and delicate, with small scars and calluses where I knew I had none. Not my hands. "I- what?"

_'That's me! My hands! Why are you here?!'_

"How should I know?!" I stumbled up, catching the edge of a dark brown dresser that was very much _not mine_, staring straight into a silvery mirror.

_I didn't see my face._

It was the face of a stranger. The face that looked back at me was too small, too round. The hair was too blond and wavy and the eyes were too violet, the skin was too pale and the nose was too small. The ears were clean and not pierced, missing little diamond studs. The eyebrows curved up, as did the nose. The mouth was little and the lips too thin. _It was the face of a stranger._

It was a dream. It had to be. I had had realistic dreams before. This was no different. And the voice shouting in the back of my mind was also a figment of my imagination. None of this was real.

_It couldn't be._

_(saprašana)_

It could be.

Three hours later found me pacing back and forth in the same room, still blankly taking in the bland décor and stolidly ignoring the voice inside of my head. If I wasn't dreaming, I definitely wasn't going to acknowledge what was most likely a hallucination. I'd pinched myself, bit my finger, and tried falling back asleep, talked to myself until my throat was as dry as sandpaper, tripped thrice, and spent an undetermined amount of time glaring into the mirror.

The voice in my head had deteriorated into a stuttering, pleading mess that sporadically went silent. I had by now placed it as Raivis, the boy from my dream, and decided he was a hallucination. He looked kind of like the son of my next-door-neighbor. Kind of.

I swung open the door, tired of pacing. The hallway I stepped into was just as plain as the room behind me, with the exception of a pretty painting. I jerkily moved down the stairs at the end of the hall, trying not trip. The front door wasn't hard to find; it was in the same room as the stairs. I twisted it open and stepped onto a bustling city sidewalk.

I relaxed, just slightly. Raivis had quieted in my head, but I could _feel_ him, watching, hovering at that calm edge that came after hysterical. The movement of the city was familiar to me, much like the streets of Toronto.

Then I saw a street sign.

_ATVERTS._

A moment later, the translation came to me. _OPEN._

I only spoke English and Canadian French.

I looked around. Every sign was in a language I didn't recognize. Except I did.

"For sale!" On a brick apartment building across the street.

"Sorry, we're closed." On a small pawn shop.

"Sandman's Bakery." Beneath it, the words "since 1999".

"Best wine in Latvia" On an advertisement plastered to the side of a white truck.

Best wine in Latvia. _Latvia._ No. Nonono. Dreaming, I was dreaming, I was dreaming.

I slammed the door, turning and falling back against it, sliding down until I was sitting with my head between my knees and my hands clutching my hair. Raivis, who had been silent since I opened the door, murmured quietly in my mind.

'_Y-you aren't dr-dreaming. N-no dream is l-like th-this.' _

I took a deep breath. "Then what is this? Magic? Schizophrenia?"

'_I d-don't know. M-maybe b-both.'_

"Why me?! _Why you?! _Why stick a Canadian girl into the body of a Latvian ten year old?!"

'_F-fifteen, actually.'_

"What?"

'_Um, not t-ten. I-I'm f-fifteen."_

"Well, that's better, I suppose," I said sarcastically. "I'm stuck in the body of a _fifteen year old Latvian boy!_ Because that's so much better than being stuck in the body of a ten year old Latvian boy!"

I felt Raivis' mind flinch back from my words. _'Sorry…'_ He sounded scared, and sad. I heaved a sigh and brought my head up to lean it back against the door.

"Yeah."

_(izskaidrot)_

_Sometime around eight PM._

Raivis had told me that he was actually the physical representation of Latvia. I wasn't sure if I believed him. I didn't disbelieve him outright, but…

I think I might have been in shock. My mind was overloaded. I still, in some part of my mind, thought this was a dream. That I would wake up in the morning, in my comfortable bed, to get ready for school, where I would chat with Carrie-chan and watch FullMetal Alchemist with her during study hall.

Raivis – Latvia – eventually fell silent. I think he could tell I wasn't listening anymore. I had closed my eyes, trying to understand what was happening. "Raivis?"

'_Y-yeah?'_

"Where is Latvia?"

"_I-It's in Northern Europe, n-next to R-Russia, and b-below the N-Nordics…'_

"So, a shitload of kilometers away from Canada?"

'_I g-guess you could p-put it like that…'_

"Goddammit! What kind of fucking god decided it was a good fucking idea to fucking mess with my fucking life and turn it into a fucking pile of shit?! Dammit!" I let loose a slew of choice vocabulary. My hands clenched and unclenched as I jerked to my feet. I stomped my feet uselessly as my voice rose. I brought up one of the tiny fists, slamming it into the wall three times before I felt the knuckle split.

'_Please stop it! Th-that hurts!'_ Raivis cried in my mind, but I wasn't listening to me. I was frozen, staring at the back of my hand as the bloody scrape stopped bleeding and closed. Moments later, the pain stopped. All that was left was a few drops of scarlet.

The whole process took less than a minute.

"No. No," I whispered. "This isn't happening. I'm dreaming, please, I'm dreaming…"

"_I'm dreaming…"_

**A/N – **

**Linebreak1- **_**change**_

**Linebreak2- **_**wake up**_

**Linebreak3- **_**explain**_

**A/N- ****Hallo! Do any of my readers know Latvian? I'm using Google Translate and a not-very-comprehensive phrasebook, which isn't very good, but if any of you can help me with translating it, that'd be Prussia-worthy awesome!**

**Chat Section- ****On the subject of names…**

**According to behindthenamedotcom, Kiku is a female name meaning "Chrysanthemum". Seeing as the author is Japanese, I think I'll trust him. It was still a funny surprise.**

**Lovino is a form of the female name Lovina, which comes from the name Lavinia.**

**Alfred comes from an old English name meaning "elf counsel"**

**Feliciano comes from Felix, meaning lucky or successful. So does Feliks. (There is no X in the Polish alphabet)**

**Feliciano – pronounced ****fe-lee-CHYAH-no****(Italian)****, fe-lee-THYAH-no****(Spanish)****, fe-lee-SYAH-no****(Latin American Spanish)**

**Anonymous Review Section: Nothing yet!**

**Reviewers: New story, so no reviews!**

**Next Chapter Preview- **

_'_Th-that's Estonia…' _Latvia murmured in my head._ 'He's like my br-brother, but not r-really.'

...

_"…Won't talk to me. He…hiding…looks like he's been crying…bathroom. I don't see...or any alcohol. Can…come over? I…listen to me." He hung up and sat on the edge of the bed._

_..._

_"Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot,"_

**# of chapters until A/N cleanup: 5**


	2. Chapter 2

**Story Title:**Es Apmaldijos

**Date Posted: **5.12.14

**Word Count: **2,456

**Disclaimer: **Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the author of Hetalia? _Hidekaz Himaruya. In other words, not me._ The two lullabies belong to their respective composers, but they are public domain and therefore do not violate the rules of Fanfictiondotnet.

**Warning: **Uncensored swearing. Mental breakdowns. Angst. A whole bucketful of angst.

**Pre-Chapter Summary: **Natalie Caron, a Canadian teenager, was suddenly transported into Latvia's body by a magic spell gone wrong.

**_Divi: Joprojām Ir Šeit_**

**Two: Still Here**

I wasn't dreaming. I shut myself in that house for a week, learning about Latvia from the country and rejecting reality. I cried, screamed, slept, ate, and curled up in the bathtub trying to ignore my new, very male, body. In those few moments when I listened to Raivis, he told me about what he did as a nation – which was mostly paperwork, since he had clearance to know everything and sign everything as long as his boss approved.

I did try to do some of the paperwork for him, but the signature came out all wrong and I was diverted as we tried to make my signature look like his. It didn't help that I kept trying to write my own name, leaving me with several papers with scribbled out signature lines.

However, the paperwork was distracting enough that I didn't have to think about what was happening, and tantrums decreased. It was boring and mindless, but I didn't really want my mind right now.

Eight days after my self-imposed isolation, someone came a-knocking. I peeked out through the peephole installed in the door, hastily rubbing my eyes, which were red and puffy because of another bought of tears. The man on the other side of the door was taller than Raivis, with blond hair and wire glasses.

_'Th-that's Estonia…'_ Latvia murmured in my head. _'He's like my br-brother, but not r-really.'_

I didn't bother trying to decipher that, and refused to answer the door. I sat on the floor in front of the door, closing my eyes as I hugged my knees.

"Latvia? Latvia, I know you're in there. Your boss said you haven't left your home in a week and you don't answer his calls. Is something wrong?" I shook my head even though I knew he couldn't see me, and curled up tighter. I was not going out there.

"Latvia, if you don't come out, Mr. Russia might come," he called again. "If you don't come out, I'm going to come in."

_'He h-has a k-key…'_ Raivis muttered, and I bolted. No, no. I was not ready to face reality.

I hid in the bathroom, in the closet. After locking the bathroom door, I curled up under the bottom shelf, burying my head in my knees and praying that Esto-whatsit wouldn't find me.

It wasn't long before I heard Esto-whatsit's footsteps in the hallway, tapping lightly across the wood. "Latvia? Latvia, please tell me what's wrong. Are you sick? Hurt?" Esto-whatsit sounded concerned, and Raivis wished he could go to him.

The bathroom door rattled, and suddenly Esto-whatsit was right outside the door. On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to lock the door. Maybe he would have missed me.

"Latvia, open the door," came his muffled voice.

I was silent, holding my breath as the door rattled again.

_'Um… Estonia c-can pick l-locks,'_ Raivis said quietly. I tensed and dug my fingernails into my leg, causing Raivis to gasp at the stinging sensation.

Sure enough, the door swung open, and Estonia entered the bathroom.

I heard him draw back the shower curtain and flip open the cabinet under the sink, before approaching the closet and opening the door. "Latvia?"

He crouched down, and I immediately hid my face, pushing myself back into a highly uncomfortable but tightly wedged position. "Latvia, what's wrong? Come out of there." Estonia grabbed my arm and tugged me out, despite my immediate struggling. If only Latvia wasn't so weak…!

When I refused to get up, Estonia lifted me into an awkward hold with difficulty, staggering down to my bedroom and dropping me on the bed. I curled up and pulled the blanket over my head, praying that Estonia would go away.

I heard the sound of a phone ringing in a muffled way, before an equally muffled voice answered.

_'He's c-calling Lithuania,'_ Raivis told me. _'He's better with this kind of thing.'_

I pressed my lips together and wrapped the blankets tighter around myself as Estonia spoke.

"…Won't talk to me. He…hiding…looks like he's been crying…bathroom. I don't see...or any alcohol. Can…come over? I…listen to me." He hung up and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Latvia, I can't help you unless I know what's wrong," he said soothingly, but I shut him out. If I ignored him enough, maybe he would disappear. This was all a hallucination, after all.

It seemed like hours later when Lithuania (whom Latvia described as polite, brunet, and gentle) arrived – along with an uninvited guest. The uninvited guest promptly informed me that "Poland has like, totally arrived! I know, right?"

I heard who I assumed to be Lithuania sigh at the antics of the other male(?) before sitting on the edge of the bed. "Latvia? Latvia, can you listen to me please?"

I shook my head, twisting myself so that I was facing away from Lithuania. Unfortunately, this had the effect of uncovering my head, and I screwed my eyes shut when Lithuania started rubbing my shoulder. This seemed to have a calming effect on Raivis, and my body relaxed subconsciously.

"Latvia, if you don't tell me what's wrong, I can't help you," Lithuania murmured as Estonia tried (and failed) to coax Poland out of the room. I swallowed tightly, feeling Latvia's shakes start to leak through. He kept trying to convince me to talk to Lithuania, to please stop because our head was really starting to hurt, and that he wasn't a hallucination.

I felt a choked little gasp escape my lips, followed by a body-shaking sob. This wasn't real, it wasn't real, please, it couldn't be real…

I curled up in an even tinier ball than before, knotting the blankets around me as I cried yet again. I wanted to go home, back to Canada, where I could play hockey with my friends and curl up with Carrie-chan on her couch, watching that Hetalia show she was so into now.

_Hetalia…_ The word brought up the image of the Italian, the German, and the Asian from the cover of Carrie's books. I mentally brought up a few words of her fuzzy rant about the characters.

_"…and the Baltics are Russia's minions! That's Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia!"_

_ "…hm."_

_ "So, Lithuania's this really cute brunet named Toris Lauren-something, and Estonia is this blond glasses character named Eduard von Something!"_

_ "…okay."_

_ "Lastly, Latvia is this absolutely adorable little blond who's always got tears in his eyes! His human name is Raivis Garante! Or was it Galante… oh, and call me Italy-chan now!"_

Plan A: Distract with mindless memory chatter. Ineffectual.

Commence Plan B: Reject reality. Violently.

I rolled away from Lithuania, automatically seeking out what my mind considered the safest place in the room: under the bed. I fell to the floor with a thump, losing the blankets, and curled up in a fetal position under the bed. I heard Lithuania and Estonia (Poland had flounced out of the room in a huff) make startled noises and start calling for Latvia. I put my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, tensing every muscle in my body and muttering under my breath to drown out Latvia. My own voice was the only thing I could hear clearly, as I recited lines just loud enough to muffle everything else.

_"Frère Jacques, frère Jacques," _I whispered, curling up tighter to block Lithuania's hand.

_"__Dormez-vous__? __Dormez-vous__?"_ Lithuania had lain down on his stomach, as I saw when I cracked my eyes open.

_"__Sonnez__ les __matines__! __Sonnez__ les __matines__!"_ I felt him tugging at my hands, trying to pull them off.

_"Ding, daing, dong. Ding, daing, dong."_ He succeeded, and I sang louder.

_"Au __clair__ de la __lune__, __monami__Pierrot__,"_ I ignored Lithuania's voice.

_"__Prête-moi__ ta plume,Pour __écrire__ un mot,"_ I was tugged forward, out from under the bed by Lithuania.

_"__Prête-moi__ ta plume,"_ No, I'd already done that line. _"Ma chandelle __est__morte__, je __n'ai__ plus de __feu__."_

_"__Ouvre-moi__ ta __porte__, pour __l'amour__ de D-__Dieu__." _I stumbled over the last word in the verse, my voice catching in my throat as Lithuania pulled me into his lap and held me carefully, making soothing noises and rubbing my shoulder. I momentarily blanked out on the next verse and fell silent, tears running down my face.

_'Are you done?'_ I heard Latvia ask hesitantly. _'That was really scary.'_

I sniffed, not bothering answering him, and tears began to choke me up as I finally released the dam. Why couldn't this be a hallucination?

My eyes began to droop as the whimpers died down, and I could finally feel the way my –_ not mine, never mine –_ neck ached from the way it was curved down to hide my face, and how I was really too big for Lithuania to hold me steady. He didn't try to ask me what was wrong, and I was thankful for that, because I didn't think I could stay calm if I let my mind wander back to _why_ I was crying. I filled my mind with other things, like the plot of FullSettle Biochemist and the lyrics to my favorite song.

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next time I woke up, the room was bright with natural light and I was curled up on Raivis' unmade bed. Lithuania and Esto-something were nowhere to be seen, but their presence was marked by the bright pink scarf draped over the vanity and a jacket that cloaked the back of a chair.

I stumbled up on shaky legs, PJ pants brushing against my skin. I had been wearing nothing but nightclothes in the past week, and I continued the trend by pulling on a white t-shirt and blue cotton pants.

I looked into the vanity mirror, and was greeted by bloodshot bluish-violet eyes and a rat's nest of hair. I halfheartedly yanked a comb through the tangled mess and rubbed my wrist across my eyes and nose, though I quickly gave up on the hair and just ran my fingers through it to keep it out of my eyes.

From there, I shuffled out of the room, tiptoeing down the stairs and peering into the small living room. Estonia was asleep on the couch, glasses askew, and I suddenly had the urge to set them on the side table. Lithuania and Poland were nowhere to be seen.

With a violent push, the urge settled down, and I padded down the hall to peek into the kitchen. There, I saw Lithuania quietly banging around, having a whispered argument with Poland, who looked as if he had just rushed inside.

I listened to their conversation. _"I thought you had gone home, Feliks,"_ Lithuania was saying, and the blonde man huffed.

_"But I, like, totally forgot my absolute fave scarf here!"_ Poland was arguing back, and tugged at the green one around his neck. _"This one definitely doesn't match my coat, like, at all! Since it's all, like, winter at my house, I totally need to be color-coordinated!"_

Lithuania was going to say something else, but he saw me standing at the kitchen door. "Latvia, you're awake! Are you feeling better?" he asked cautiously. I flinched back violently when his hand reached out for mine, and backed away a step. He let his hand fall to his side, before saying "Would you like something to eat?"

I ignored him –_ go away, let me drown in self-pity _– edging around him and opening the cabinet to pull out a box of foreign cereal. I overfilled a bowl, leaving the box open on the counter, and dumped some milk in the bowl. It spilled a little into the plate I had automatically slid under the bowl, some sloshing even farther and dripping on my fingers, as I placed it silently on the table and grabbed a paper towel.

I poured some of the cranberry juice in the fridge into a shallow glass, hearing it click as I set it down next to the overfilled cereal bowl, and grabbed a fork from the drawer.

I managed to stolidly ignore the two unwelcome guests, despite Latvia's hesitant protests, blankly spooning soggy flakes into my mouth. Poland, I learned, was incredibly annoying, but managed to distract Lithuania from me long enough for me to finish my cereal and drop the dirty bowl in the sink. I slunk from the room, ignoring both Lithuania and Latvia's objections, and began to shuffle back down the hall in the hopes that they would leave if I locked myself in the bedroom and shoved the vanity in front of the door.

My plan was thwarted when I crashed into something, falling back and hitting the ground hard. Looking up, I saw a ruffled Estoria… Estolia… Estonia! Yes, a ruffled _Estonia_ with crooked glasses looking down at me in surprise. "Lat…via?" he asked in shock, before reaching down to grab my hand and help me up. "Are you feeling better?"

I released his hand as if it was on fire, _because goddammit I was scared and I was homesick and I had just spent the last week cooped up in this foreign house and now there were people I didn't know who thought they knew me and I just had to Get Out_, turned around, and bolted out the front door, barely pausing to put on sneakers minus the socks.

Latvia was starting to sound a little hysterical, and it was as if the people around me were reflecting that. I saw only a few rare smiles, and many people looked exhausted and depressed. Some of them started as I ran by, and looks of fear and hysteria flashed across their faces.

I didn't pay much attention to them, letting Latvia's feet guide me around the familiar…_unfamiliar_… city and into a wintery brown park with cool shadows and light snow crusted gently across the ground. I was shivering violently, though I wasn't sure if it was the cold or Raivis' own tremors leaking through my control. Either way, I was attracting odd looks from some of the local population.

I found a sheltered, clean bench hidden beneath an evergreen that I was able to sit down on. Goosebumps rose on my skin as the cold stone sucked away what little warmth I still had in me, but I didn't move, liking the feeling of numbness that seemed to dull the hysteria rising in me.

Raivis fell silent again, "watching" me, in a sense – waiting to see what I would do, if I would let us freeze to death right here or go back to his house and talk to Lithuania.

As it turned out, I wasn't really getting a choice.

"Is very cold out, da?"

**A/N- **Enter Russia!

**Chat Section- **I got more reviews than I expected! OC stories aren't very popular in the Hetalia fandom, so that makes me very happy!

**Anonymous Review Section: **

Nyghtshade – Thank you!

**Reviewers: **Nyghtshade, Charisasori, The Unwritten Vacancy, Tanglepelt, Chicas, and Urau! Thank you so much!

**Next Chapter Preview- **

_"W-weren't you st-stalking Ch-China?"_

_"Da, but I was arrested."_

_"A-A-Arrested?!"_

_"Da, arrested. For public indecency."_

**# of chapters until A/N cleanup: **4


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